What do you think?
Rate this book
Paths Through the Forest: A Biography of the Brothers Grimm
First edition. "This biography reveals the Brothers Grimm not merely in the role of fatherly storytellers but also as pivotal figures in the German Romantic movement." xviii, 266 pages. cloth-backed boards, dust jacket.. 8vo..
266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 8, 2013
This is a pleasant dual biography of two rather pleasant individuals, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Primarily known for the many editions of their Fairy Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 1812 etc.) they were actually most important as philologists and as the originators of the first really scholarly grammar as well as dictionary of the Germanic languages--the latter, only completed in 1960, being comparable to our own Oxford English Dictionary were it expanded to include Old as well as Middle English.
The brothers' personal lives were not of the stuff page-turning biographies are usually fabricated from. A year apart in age, they got along famously, working most of their lives from the same desk. One, Wilhelm, was happily married and had children. The other, Jacob, was a doting uncle. Often they shared the same home, sometimes the same office--usually as librarians until their appointment as independent scholars in Berlin. Although personally involved in such affairs as the Congress of Vienna and acquainted with many of the crowned heads of Europe, neither was particularly political nor particularly impressed. They were scholars' scholars--admirable figures with exemplary lives by my standards.
Not knowing much about the history of linguistics (theories of language) and philology (history of language), I painlessly learned quite a lot from reading this book. Additionally, now the history of Romanticism as a movement affecting the sciences, the arts and politics makes more sense to me as do the lives of generations of Germanic intellectuals brought up in the wake of their achievements.
The brothers' personal lives were not of the stuff page-turning biographies are usually fabricated from. A year apart in age, they got along famously, working most of their lives from the same desk. One, Wilhelm, was happily married and had children. The other, Jacob, was a doting uncle. Often they shared the same home, sometimes the same office--usually as librarians until their appointment as independent scholars in Berlin. Although personally involved in such affairs as the Congress of Vienna and acquainted with many of the crowned heads of Europe, neither was particularly political nor particularly impressed. They were scholars' scholars--admirable figures with exemplary lives by my standards.
Not knowing much about the history of linguistics (theories of language) and philology (history of language), I painlessly learned quite a lot from reading this book. Additionally, now the history of Romanticism as a movement affecting the sciences, the arts and politics makes more sense to me as do the lives of generations of Germanic intellectuals brought up in the wake of their achievements.
April 9, 2022
Interesting biography of the Grimm brothers. I learned a number of things about them. I have grown to appreciate them so much for the work they did gathering and publishing the folks tales of Germany and wanted to know more about them.
This is not a fast reading book but worth it if you want to know more about this topic.
This is not a fast reading book but worth it if you want to know more about this topic.
November 3, 2015
I'm a very great fan of the fairy tales; I tracked this book down after I thought how odd it was that one barely even thinks of the Brothers Grimm as being a real-life pair of people; I wanted to know about their reasons for collecting folk and fairy tales, and to find out something of their characters.
This book very simply sets out the lives of these two men. Really solidly interesting throughout for me; the attachment they had to each other is pretty amazing, and they seem like they were quite remarkable people in the field of research. I felt quite attached to them myself by the end.
I frankly had no idea of the other contributions they made aside from the Fairy Tales; Jacob Grimm pioneered in philological research, and began compiling an ambitious German dictionary with Wilhelm towards the end of their lives.
A favourite part of the book for me was the numerous quotes from the brothers all through it, many written in a gorgeously Romantic style about all nature of topics: poetry, language, life, death, etc.
A beautiful book.
This book very simply sets out the lives of these two men. Really solidly interesting throughout for me; the attachment they had to each other is pretty amazing, and they seem like they were quite remarkable people in the field of research. I felt quite attached to them myself by the end.
I frankly had no idea of the other contributions they made aside from the Fairy Tales; Jacob Grimm pioneered in philological research, and began compiling an ambitious German dictionary with Wilhelm towards the end of their lives.
A favourite part of the book for me was the numerous quotes from the brothers all through it, many written in a gorgeously Romantic style about all nature of topics: poetry, language, life, death, etc.
A beautiful book.
April 29, 2013
I don't know why I'd never heard anything on what the Grimm Brothers' intentions were in collecting all of their tales and the setting in which they were working in, but this explains the environment of Romanticism and nationalist motivations so thoroughly. And I love how the author details his support, very keen eye, no posturing, just straight through to the points.
Read
September 2, 2013Aug 6, 2009
Read
April 18, 2016a very good and detailed account of the lives of the Grimm brothers and their contribution to folk and fairy tales. It had not occurred to me that they lived under the occupation of Napoleon.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews